Welcome to the Dojo!

I was talking with someone recently who told me they were looking forward to Summer. That their business really slowed down in the Summer, and it was a chance to slow down themselves and not have to think too much or learn anything new for a while. They were looking forward to some beach time reading a trashy romance novel.

Now, I like to read a good fiction book as much as the next person, although my taste leans more “covert spy novel” than trashy romance. But I thought about that conversation later and realized that’s not the person I want to be. I want to be a person who continues to learn and grow and upskill. I am not taking the Summer off, quite the opposite! I am a year-round growth advocate, and I am going to end my Summer better than I started it! I am thinking of this as Summer School!

Alvin Toffler, in his 1970’s book Future Shock, writes that the illiterate of the next century won’t be the people who can’t read and write. They will be the people that can “Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn.” This is genius. 

Think about how fast things are changing. Think about how important it is to stay relevant both personally and professionally. I often joke with my audience about the importance of staying relevant by sharing this example. I have been speaking professionally for 27 years. I have been doing this so long that when I started, we didn’t have laptops and PowerPoint presentations that we carried around. No, we had those big overhead projectors – you know what I mean. The ones that you remember from 4th grade math class! With the individual transparencies you had to change out—oh yeah. I was fancy back then. The point is this, if you hired me to come and present to your team or at your event in 2025 and I showed up with an overhead projector, well you might doubt my expertise!

So, when I say this is Summer School, I am calling it my Dojo Summer!

A Dojo in Japan is a place of learning of growth. The word Dojo translates in English to be

“The place of the Way”

We come into the Dojo with certain, limited skills. When we leave the Dojo we are closer to the “way.” The Dojo is the “training zone.” This is where we focus on our growth and finding our place of impact. We enter the Dojo Summer one way... but at the end... we are closer to THE way.

What if we started a trend? And we got everyone on board for a Dojo Summer!? What if you did it and you encouraged your work team do it? What if you encouraged your kids to do it too? Imagine them starting their next school year ahead of the game?

What are some of the ways you can upskill in the next three months?

Read professional development Literature. It’s OK to read the fiction stuff too, but what if you did the good stuff too? A leadership book, a biography, a book on personal success, something to help broaden your knowledge base and inspire more creative ideas. Imagine the possibilities!

Take a class. A class at your local community center or college. It can be a single class that gives you some additional knowledge, it doesn’t have to lead to a degree or even a new professional certification. Although it could do that too! Who wouldn’t love to add a new professional certification to their resume?

Attend a conference or a virtual webinar or conference. Those can be chock full of great ideas! And even if you only get one or two nuggets of information from it, that adds to your skillset.

How about making it a team effort and bringing in some training for your team? (That’s where I come in!) Is this a little self-serving? Well, sure. But it is still a great idea! And I have some super special Dojo Summer Specials you can take advantage of, so check those out! (You can shoot me an email at julie@julieburch.com for details!)

If you are like me, and you want to continue to move from a life of mediocrity to a life of IMPACT you must DO something to make it happen. You know the saying “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” If you want something to be different in your life YOU have to DO something different!